Tony Windsor addressed a group of believers and doubters at the Tenterfield Bowling Club on Thursday night, listing his reasons for putting up his hand for the federal seat of New England in the July 2 poll.
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He said there is a series of issues affecting communities at the local, regional and national levels concurrently, and that he didn’t leave politics because he was sick of it, but rather for family issues.
“Australian of the Year David Morrison said the standard that you walk past in the standard you accept, and that phrase hit home.”
He said the five issues that drove him to run again are not short-term ones but, win or lose, he’d be sending a message about them. They are the National Broadband Network (NBN), the Gonski education formula, climate change, water and mining in the Murray Darling Basin, and parliamentary conduct. He sees the NBN as the technology to turn the city/country paradigm on its head making it more attractive to run businesses from the country, but funding it has become a political ploy.
“What Armidale has is what every town should have,” Mr Windsor said.
He said the technology could act like an electronic blanket that can be put around a person, monitoring temperature, appliances and a person’s whereabouts.
“What if 5-10 per cent of aged people could stay in their homes one, two or three years longer?”
With aged care capital costs of $250,000 a bed he fears a glut of “stranded assets” once the baby boomers have passed through an aged care system expanded to accommodate them.
“(The NBN’s) not about the money, and never has been,” he said. “It’s about politics.”
He supports Gonski and its needs-based formula where funding follows the child whether they go, at a public, private or religious school.
He fears the extraordinary things that can happen to agriculture through climate change and said plant breeders won’t be able to keep pace with environmental changes.
Conversely industry advances such as the bio-digester at Bindaree Beef that could eventually power the entire plant spell exciting things to come.
While Mr Windsor said he’s not anti-mining, he does stress the importance of “getting the science right” before allowing mining activity to proceed in sensitive areas such as the Liverpool Plains.
He said that when the CSIRO says there’s a 30 per cent chance of something going wrong, it’s time to take notice. Finally he said parliament needs an anti-corruption policy so that large political donations can be traced to their source, and a standing Royal Commission on corruption be established to hear accusations of corruption in any industry be it banking, unions or sex abuse.
He tackled concerns about running as an independent by urging voters to check the record of achievement for independents.
“Achievements in the electorate are much higher than those of subservient, safe-seat occupiers,” he said. “Safe seats don’t get rewarded.”
Mr Windsor said he was proud of his achievements in the hung parliament, saying Julia Gillard was the best choice at the time.
“Tony Abbott has a lot of strengths, but negotiating isn’t one of them.”
Questions from the audience touched on coal seam gas mining, foreign land ownership, same-sex marriage, negative gearing and the local hospital.
When asked what he can offer the people of Tenterfield, he said his policy was to ask the people what they want and then go in to bat for them, but it’s vital for the community to get a unity of purpose. He cited the town bypass and hospital as examples of where the community is split and nothing happens.
“Get a unity of purpose and you will achieve it, so it’s over to you.”
Mr Windsor said if elected he would keep an office in Tenterfield.
